Julie Shahroudi

This course encourages students to think creatively about what it means for a healthcare organization to make quality the highest priority. We will explore the current forces driving the push toward quality outcomes and accountability at all levels and settings of healthcare, while focusing on the philosophy of continuous improvement through team work and statistical thinking. Students will use structural tools for analysis, decision making and performance measurement.

Effective development, planning, execution and communication of special projects are critical to all types of public service organizations. Service organization, health providers and other institutions constantly pursue new initiatives – offering new services, developing creative approaches to service delivery, beginning new program components, opening new facilities, introducing new technologies – to address the demands of their constantly changing environment. Nonprofit and government organizations face similar pressures are also rely on special projects to address them. This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts and methods for directing projects and provides students with tools that prepare them for success as a project manager.

Effective development, planning, execution and communication of special projects are critical to all types of public service organizations. Service organization, health providers and other institutions constantly pursue new initiatives – offering new services, developing creative approaches to service delivery, beginning new program components, opening new facilities, introducing new technologies – to address the demands of their constantly changing environment. Nonprofit and government organizations face similar pressures are also rely on special projects to address them. This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts and methods for directing projects and provides students with tools that prepare them for success as a project manager.

Effective development, planning, execution and communication of special projects are critical to all types of public service organizations. Service organization, health providers and other institutions constantly pursue new initiatives – offering new services, developing creative approaches to service delivery, beginning new program components, opening new facilities, introducing new technologies – to address the demands of their constantly changing environment. Nonprofit and government organizations face similar pressures are also rely on special projects to address them. This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts and methods for directing projects and provides students with tools that prepare them for success as a project manager.

Only open to Executive MPA students. 

This course is designed to explore the complex organizational mechanisms that need to be in place for the delivery of world-class service. While many organizations understand the importance of service, the ability to consistently deliver on this service often eludes them. This is especially true in healthcare organizations.  Customer service is the end product, the outcome of a well-oiled machine that has the infrastructure, the staff, and the will to deliver on that service. It requires exquisite synergy among key organizational components: human resources - leveraging recruitment, selection, training, empowerment, coaching, recognition staff for service delivery; organization and systems design - implementation of an organizational structure that facilitates service delivery using customer-focused processes and systems; and the deliberate creation of a service culture that permeates all segments of the organization regardless of role, rank, or function in the organization.

This course will cover a broad range of service delivery topics including: defining service excellence, aligning core organizational and human resource systems for service delivery, seeing service from the customer’s perspective, improving systems and service, service failure and recovery, and benchmarking best practices in world class service organizations.

In addition to providing you with an understanding of current issues in service excellence, a second objective of this course is to develop your skills in applying these concepts. To do this, business cases, classroom exercises and assignments will provide individuals and groups an opportunity to practice analyzing and solving actual service problems. It is my intention that you leave the course with an expanded toolkit that can be applied to your work contexts as well as being better informed about organizational dynamics that impact customer service.

This course encourages students to think creatively about what it means for a healthcare organization to make quality the highest priority. We will explore the current forces driving the push toward quality outcomes and accountability at all levels and settings of healthcare, while focusing on the philosophy of continuous improvement through team work and statistical thinking. Students will use structural tools for analysis, decision making and performance measurement.

Effective development, planning, execution and communication of special projects are critical to all types of public service organizations. Service organization, health providers and other institutions constantly pursue new initiatives – offering new services, developing creative approaches to service delivery, beginning new program components, opening new facilities, introducing new technologies – to address the demands of their constantly changing environment. Nonprofit and government organizations face similar pressures are also rely on special projects to address them. This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts and methods for directing projects and provides students with tools that prepare them for success as a project manager.